Two years ago, my good friend Paul Glenn '10 wrote in his weekly column that he vehemently disagreed with the creation of an Ivy League Tournament to decide the men's and women's basketball conference championship ("A View from the Top," Feb. 8, 2010). I guess wisdom doesn't come with height, huh? This past Wednesday, word came from the Ivy League that the coaches of the Ancient Eight teams have proposed a two-round tournament at the end of the regular season to decide the conference's automatic bids in the men's and women's NCAA Tournaments. It appears the Ivy League has decided to join other top-level conferences in the NCAA and introduce postseason play.
When Glenn emailed me a Bloomberg article explaining this development late last week, he also included a link to his article that was published over two years ago. After rereading Glenn's column I had obviously read it in 2010, since I read The Dartmouth every day I couldn't help but think Glenn's opinion in 2010 was wrong. The Bloomberg article made it clear to me that although Glenn made several fine points, an Ivy League postseason tournament would be the correct path to choose.
Under the proposal made by the Ivy League coaches, the basketball regular season would be shortened by one game with the elimination of a non-conference game. The top four finishers in the regular season would participate in the postseason tournament to decide the league champion, which would then receive the conference's automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament. If this tournament already existed, the men's teams that would have qualified last season were Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania, Princeton University and Yale University. On the women's side, the postseason would have involved Princeton, Harvard, Yale and Brown University.
The proposal will be presented to Ivy League athletic directors within the next few weeks, and if approved, an Ivy League policy committee would vote on it in late May. If the policy committee supports the proposal, the school presidents would vote on it on June 12 which means it would likely be one of College President Jim Yong Kim's last important decisions. Will Kim be in favor of a thrilling postseason tournament? Only time will tell.
While we wait for the higher-ups of the Ivy League to make the right decision, it's up to us, the fans, to speculate on how successful a postseason tournament would be. As Glenn wrote in his column, March Madness a term that's used for the hoopla surrounding postseason conference tournaments is associated with "rivalries, buzzer-beaters, nailbiters and upsets." Why would anyone ever vote against that?
Having a postseason tournament would certainly change the nature of the Ivy League regular season. Teams would focus on the first half of the regular season to gain confidence and ensure that they are firing on all cylinders come the home stretch of the season. Although regular season conference games are somewhat heated now, the tension would be off the charts if Ivy League teams were fighting for a spot in the postseason tournament. As long as a team punches its ticket to the postseason, anything is possible, and that's reason enough to introduce an Ivy League Tournament.
The argument that Glenn made in his column against the tournament is valid, as he said that an undefeated conference record should translate to an automatic bid to the Big Dance.
"A conference tournament could mean [the Ivy League regular season leader] would have to win as many as three more games before setting off on the road to [the NCAA Tournament]," Glenn said.
Wouldn't it make sense, however, for the top Ivy League team to put its money where its mouth is and prove that it is undoubtedly the best team in the conference? A tournament would allow for that, as well as provide a preview of the intensity that the conference champion would face in the NCAA Tournament. Ivy League teams, as opposed to schools like Duke University, Georgetown University and the University of North Carolina, do not always play in front of huge crowds, and a postseason tournament would help athletes get over the initial butterflies of playing in a packed arena.
Glenn, who two years ago was flip-flopping between being a supporter or opponent of an Ivy League postseason, has now come around, and actually called himself an "idiot" for thinking a postseason tournament could not work in the Ivy League. The time has come for the Ivy League to introduce a postseason tournament for basketball, and we can only hope the higher-ups say "Yes, bring March Madness to the Ivy League."
